1. Historical Background of the Music

1.1This compact disc, the first in a series
highlighting significant programs from the annual Jeux d'Orgues en Yvelines Festival, was recorded at the parish church in Houdan, where Les Demoiselles
de Saint-Cyr perform sacred works for female voices by Marc-Antoine Charpentier
(16341704) in combination with related liturgical improvisations played
by Michel Chapuis on the church's important Cliquot organ (1735). First
presented in autumn 1996, the program was recorded in 1997 and features
works chosen from the considerable body of pieces the composer wrote for
religious communities. At the heart of the disc's contents are a Mass (H.5)
and Magnificat (H.81) that, along with three other of his liturgical works,
Charpentier designated pour le Port-Royal. In liner notes for the
recording Catherine Cessac reiterates the theory, first expounded in her
1988 monograph on the composer,(note
1) that these two compositions were written not for Port-Royal des Champsthe
convent and lay community near Versailles renowned in the seventeenth century
for its Cistercian austerity and Jansenist doctrinebut to its Paris
branch, Port-Royal de Paris, which separated from the mother-house when
its members renounced Jansenism in 1669. Solo parts in four of Charpentier's
Port-Royal pieces bear names of residents of the Paris house, and even though
the Mass is not similarly annotated it seems reasonable to assume it to
have been composed for the same community.

1.2However, Cessac's suggestion that the
Messe de Port-Royal was commissioned specifically for ceremonies
at the convent on 20 July 1687, the feast of St. Margaret, is not entirely
convincing. On that day and by permission of the convent's abbess Marguerite
Harlay de Champvallon, whose name-day it was, Franciscan monks from the
neighboring Grand Couvent des Cordeliers held services at her church in
thanksgiving for the recovery from illness of her brother François,
archbishop of Paris. To support the theory that Charpentier might have
composed his Mass for this occasion Cessac notes that, in addition to
the mass ordinary, the work also contains two sets of minor propers (introit,
gradual, offertory and communion), one for St. Francis, the other for
St. Margaret (the names of the archbishop and his sister). This theory
cannot, however, be verified since the autograph source for Charpentier's
works (the Méslanges) lacks dates, and it even seems contradicted
by an account in the
Mercure galant stating that the service was sung not by the
nuns but by the Pères Cordeliers.(note
2)

2. The Liturgies

2.1Whether or not performed at the services
described in Mercure galant, Charpentier's Mass and Magnificat For
Port-Royal as presented on this recording constitute a fascinating attempt
to illustrate how mass and vespers might have sounded on such an occasion.
To this end Charpentier's mass ordinary and proper (the St. Francis set)
are supplemented with appropriate paraliturgical pieces, so that the introit
is preceded by a strophic setting of Veni Creator, H.69 (often sung
during the procession before High Mass on Sunday), Sanctus is followed by
an O salutaris hostia H. 261 (to evoke that most baroque of liturgical
ceremonies, the elevation), and the communion by a Domine salvum
H. 290 (a prayer for the sovereign appended to the end of mass during the
reign of Louis XIII). Organ pieces are supplied according to Charpentier's
rubrics (which specify either un couplet or un petit prélude)
and, in the case of interpolated pieces, by custom. To suggest clerical
participation Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Ite missa est begin with traditional
Gregorian intonations in "improved" versions of the period, complete with
trills.

2.2The context for Charpentier's Magnificat
is more slender, the vesper office, of which it forms the climax, represented
here by a single psalm (no. 116: Laudate Dominum, H.182)(note
3) and the hymn Ave maris stella, H. 63, one of Charpentier's
several settings of the popular Marian text. Instead of following the
hymn immediately, the Vesper canticle is delayed by the introduction of
a motet pour Ste Thérèse (Flores, o gallia,
H. 342). The Port-Royal Magnificat features solo verses in sensual monodic
style (the continuo accompaniment played by bass viol and organ) in alternation
with choral verses set to a simple fauxbourdon. In this performance the
proper Gregorian antiphon Veni sponsa Christi is chanted (unaccompanied
and in a period version) before the canticle and reappears after it in
a plainchant en taille verset for organ. The juxtaposition of musical
styles and media in this climactic canticle offer an excellent illustration
of baroque liturgical music.

2.3Except for the addition of a continuo
accompaniment, the Messe pour le Port-Royal stands in the tradition
of the plainchant musical mass, a genre that first appears in Bourgoing's
mass settings for the Oratorians (1634) and continues in Du Mont's Cinq
messes en plein-chant, propres pour toutes sortes de Religieux et Religieuses,
de quelque Ordre qu'ils soient; qui se peuvent chanter toutes les bonnes
festes de l'année, (1669). By their austere, quasi-modal melodies
(which retained traditional Gregorian intonations), simple but marked
rhythms, and absence of instrumental accompaniment) such masses served
the needs of religious communities seeking to fulfill the choir obligation
on feast days with something more attractive than a Gregorian mass, but
ill prepared or forbidden by the order's constitutions to perform polyphonic
settings. Plainchant musical mass movements had the further advantage
of sparing conventual choirs the fatigue and monotony of uninterrupted
singing by being cast, like Gregorian ordinaries, in clearly separated
sections that could be performed in alternation with vocal solos or, if
the conventual chapel possessed an organ, versets. The latter were not
regulated by the Ceremoniale parisiense, which addresses itself
to parish and collegiate churches and describes alternation with Gregorian
chant. Charpentier's Port-Royal Mass, on the other hand, reflects patterns
of alternation between soloists, choir, and organist that reflect the
unique requirements and resources of conventual music-making.

3. The Organ Versets

3.1 Although the liner notes are silent about the chapel organ at
Port-Royal de Paris, it was probably no more elaborate than the Cliquot
instrument at Houdan, but the nuns who played it are unlikely to have possessed
Michel Chapuis's skill at improvising preludes and versets. Seventeenth-century
conventual and provincial organists were rarely more than adequate players,
and in fact it was for them that leading Parisian organists produced their
livres d'orgue, raising the question of whether their contents might
not be better suited for a messe pour les couvents than Chapuis's
sophisticated contributions. In either case, Charpentier calls for considerably
fewer organ pieces than are contained in the masses of Nivers, Lebègue
or Gigault, owing to his reluctance to replace many portions of text by
organ music.

3.2 Credo is set for voices throughout and only the concluding
Amen of Gloria in excelsis is supplied by the organ (a spirited dialogue
sur les grands jeux) ; Benedictus, on the other hand, is replaced
entirely (and appropriately) by a tierce en taille (à la Couperin).
Where a text contains repeated phrases, the organist is given a wider
berth: four versets (fonds d'orgue, récit de voix humaine, récit
de trompette, and grand plein jeu) alternate with voices in
Kyrie eleison; a plein jeu and récit de cornet articulate
the first and third acclamations of Sanctus; while the first and third
petitions of Agnus Dei are represented by a récit de trompette
and flûtes, respectively. In addition, the organist is directed
to supply a short prelude before the introit and gradual and after each
of the celebrant's intonations, that for Ite missa est being answered
by a brief plainchant en taille. At Vespers, the organist's solo
contributions are confined to even-numbered stanzas of the hymn (note
4) (récit de cornet, récit de trompette, récit
de nasard, and point d'orgue sur le plein jeu) and the repeat
of the Magnificat antiphon.

3.3Chapuis improvises pieces in a variety
of genres and registrations which reveal his solid knowledge of the French
classical tradition and demonstrate the historic importance of the Houdan
organ. Individually as soloists and collectively as a chorus, Mandarins
ten Demoiselles masterfully shape Charpentier's deceptively simple vocal
lines, stylishly execute his ornaments, and pronounce the Latin in a charmingly
Frenchified way.

References

*Benjamin Van Wye (bvanwye@scott.skidmore.edu)
resides in upstate New York, where he serves as Lecturer in Music at Skidmore
College, writes about the organ's role in historic liturgies, and is active
as organ recitalist and choral conductor. Return to text

3. Although not one of Charpentier's psalm settings
for Port Royal (H. 226 and H. 227), H. 182 appears nevertheless to have
been intended for conventual use. Return to text

4. It was customary for the organ to take even-numbered
stanzas when alternating with polyphonic vocal settings, such as this
one for two florid upper voices and basso continuo, and odd-numbered ones
when alternating with plainsong. The alternatim pattern of Charpentier's
hymn is therefore standard and not, as the liner notes state, a reversal
attributable to local custom. Return to text

Account in the Mercure Galant

Father Gardien, in the company of his officers and around thirty monks,
arrived at the church of Port-Royal on the morning of the feast day. They
began by chanting Terce, and then High Mass was sung with all the ceremonies
of the great convent, and several accompanied motets to the Blessed Sacrament,
Saint Margaret, and for the king, following which Sext was sung. . . . Nones
and vespers were sung at the usual time in plainchant and fauxbourdon. . . . A salut en musique [i.e., Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament with composed
music] ended the feast. It was sung by the same Fathers who performed the
entire service of the day [reviewer's emphasis]. Return to text

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